Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator Don't believe in lazy saturdays so close to a new spring time, when anybody thinks nothing notable can really happen! That's the right time to expect the unexpected to happens!
Norbert Kehrer is not a n00b into the emulation field, it's not for a coincidence his own site is named Norbert's Emulators. He thought that the Atari coinop game classic Asteroids that hit in the arcades in 1979, all in all, is based on a 6502 CPU, a proper video generator for vectors and some circuitry for the audio output. In the very end, machines like C64 and Plus/4 work with a similar heart, so why don't emulate that old fashioned vector game in all its charming elegance?
Asteroids is the pretty cool result Norbert has achieved: a very playable version of the Atari's ancient gem, even at higher levels, when the vector objects on screen are so many to move. The Plus/4 version runs faster than the C64 one, due to the advantage of the automatic doubleclocking that occurs when the Plus/4 raster draws on the borders.
Polished, playable, unforeseen. The only thing we can ask is: more of those surprises. Thanks Norbert!
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator Indeed, beautiful even porting an actual arcade machine as it was meant to be seen and it plays this slick!!
Did you vote? Would love to give it a 10/10 but that would be unfair as I'm judging everything that's gone in to making it work when the game is an old school & fun little shooter which the C16/Plus4 always did good with in the past in all types and forms. I gave it an 8 looking at it as a game to play hoping that was about right, but the speed and quality of it is very impressive!
Just to get the ball rolling I added a starter score for Asteroids, lets see some more.
Note, adding your name is a little slow but LEFT or RIGHT is used to select a letter and then hold DOWN for about 1 second for that current letter to add ect... As it says on screen, just allow it a little time so it can add that letter in turn. No need to panic as I did.
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator Wow that's amazing. Faster than the C64 version which was released last month
However I have found a problem. For some reason it doesn't work on my Commodore 16 with internal 64K upgrade, it crashes after the first screen when you try to enter the main game. It works fine in Yape in C16+64K mode though
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator I'm quite sure there's room to do better, I'm waiting for new challengers
May I add that I'm quite happy to see a new release with 5 votes immediately, clear sign of scene interest? I really would have the same to happen to every new or recovered stuff :)
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator I remember I played it on the original machine when I was a kid. I spent a several 20Ft (HUFs) on this game, when one icecream was only 5
Nice game, though I hate those small UFOs... They were responsible for most of my lost HUFs in my childhood.
I made 11000 but no sreenshot, maybe next time. Well, what is this hyperspace thingy? I always die
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator I love this old-school games. You don't need much to make a great game, as Asteroids prooves it. There should be more original arcade-conversions like this on homecomputers. Gameplay combined with good sound is much, much more important than sophisticated graphics, im my opinion. All the great arcade-games have good soundeffects and in most cases a nice melody. Take Frogger, DigDug, Pacman, Phoenix, Burger-Time, DonkeyKong.
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator Sixteen Plus, let him know there maybe a bug on a 64k C16. It's 19k and I even tested it on 32K setup but again it did not work. I guess the program expands beyond the 32K limits but why it does not run on your 64k C16 is strange.
As you say, it does run on Yape. Time to dig that real Plus/4 back out you have - no harm in using a plus/4 for a bit just to play it! Not tried on the real hardware yet either.
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator The Plus/4 I have stashed away (somewhere) is iffy and just conks out at any moment. I'll have to dig it out and maybe see if I can get it to work on it but I already assume it would do, if my own Plus/4 is up to it that is.
I'll probably need to go to his site and leave him some honest feedback somewhere, as of course he won't ever want a bugged version released. It definitely doesn't work on my stock C16 with 64K ram internal upgrade, yet it somehow works in Yape with the C16 with 64K upgrade? I don't get it.
Re: Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator Have you tried loading it from the monitor? M(SHIFT)O L"ASTEROIDS",8
Might be something as simple as that. Maybe it was saved 1 bite out? Yape does not care, it will load either way be it $1000 or $1001 because Yape is set to always load @ $1001, load"",8,1.
If it does work then yeah it should of been $1001 to $XXXX when it was saved originally. Again if it works, reload the file into YAPE and resave it from the menus, YAPE will save it correctly.
Plus/4 Asteroids Emulator
